Yet Anna-ther Benefit of Social Media

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As India cheered the World Cup Victory, the country was losing out to corruption. On 5th April Anna Hazare, a renowned visionary, went on an indefinite hunger strike in order to take the first step against corruption. He aims to keep up the fast until the government takes definitive measures and creates a law in order to eradicate corruption from this country. The ‘Modern Day Gandhi’ has got the nation in frenzy with lakhs of people showing their support for the cause in all possible ways. The journey from “One man fighting against the system” to “Nationwide interest” definitely has its roots in one of the most powerful marketing channels of modern times: Social Media.

Social media channels have had a huge impact on exposing this crusade to a much larger audience especially the Indian youth who shy away from any association with politics. Facebook Events like “Online Support for Anna Hazare” have been showing impressive response.

The actual impact of social media in bringing about actual change in the policy itself is definitely debatable but the medium has certainly done what it does best: generate intense interest. It is this interest that has the potential to turn a cynical nation into a powerful resource against social evils. Celebrities like Chetan Bhagat have written about the cause on their personal blogs and in turn started a snowball reaction which is capturing eyeballs by the second.

Facebook and Twitter both have had some unbelievable activity relating to Anna Hazare’s campaign. The Official Page of “India Against Corruption”, which is backed by Hazare himself, currently has over 1,56,300 fans and the number is rising every minute.

Twitter has seen innumerable trending topics relating to the issue with some like #hazare, #neta, #lokpal etc. reporting hundreds of Tweets every second. The hastag #annahazare spiked within a very short time and went on to become one of the most powerful topics on Twitter.

Why the internet and more importantly why social media? Why have they managed to create attention of this magnitude? The answer is simple: ‘There is strength in numbers”. The number of Social Media users surpasses the population of most countries and with the amount of hours an individual spends on websites like Facebook and Twitter, information can easily be shared with the hopes of it being consumed.